Recording Tips & Techniques

• When mic'ing up drums make sure that the kit is correctly tuned and that excessive resonance is dampened via the use of duct tape and or tissue. It is always a good idea to put a item of clothing inside the kick drum against the skins so that it dampens excessive resonance. You should use a large diaphragm microphone for the kick drum, a range of uni-directional dynamic microphones(with a tight polar pattern) for the snare and toms and a pair of condensers for overhead mic'ing. Make sure that every part mic'ed sounds good through the mixer via equalising and then level all microphones so that the output remains constant and it sounds natural. It may also be a nice added touch to pan out the drums on the mixing desk so as to make the recording sound even more natural.

• Guitars are best recorded with the use of a Shure SM57 aimed over the cone of the amplifiers speaker. Aiming it towards the centre of the speaker will result in a tight punchy sound and aiming towards the edge of the speaker cone will result in a muddy soft ambient sound. You could make use of several microphones when mic'ing a guitar amp; for instance putting a SM57 over one speaker and a large diaphragm microphone over another to pick up all the low punchy sounds... you could also place a condenser several metres away from the amplifier resulting in a tight natural reverb/delay effect. Experimenting is the key to getting the best sound, and remember that you may have to use different recording methods for different sounds(i.e. Clean, distortion etc.).

• Bass guitars are best recorded using a mix of a large diaphragm microphone and via DI(direct injection – taking the feed from the amplifiers line out to the mixing desk) or either one of the two. Using both will get you the best and most natural sound though.

• Vocals should be the very last thing recorded; the vocals are the key to the song in most peoples eyes(or ears!) and thus it is imperative to have the best possible sound. You may want to record sections at a time or phrases at a time just to make sure you get the best possible recordings at any one time. Vocals can sound really good with the use of both a condenser microphone and a large diaphragm microphone, perhaps even use a uni-directional dynamic
microphone with the other two options! You should experiment until you get the best possible sound. Once you have recorded all the parts it is time to level the recorded tracks of the vocals as so to maintain legato(fluidity) within the vocal section of the recorded song. It may be a good idea to add light compression onto the track after levelling as so to prevent volume spikes. Should you need a louder or more prominent vocals section in one part of the song simply copy and paste a section of the recorded vocals onto another track so that there are two layers of the vocals at the same time, giving a thicker texture with volume gain.

• All tracks should have adequate compression added before mastering; as this will maintain continuity.